Project Playtime: Cloud Dough

So, my son is almost 2 and I'm always looking for fun and cheap things to do together while daddy's at work. I've seen "Cloud Dough" floating around the blogosphere for awhile now and it seemed like a good place to start with the outdoor messy play. The recipe is really easy, one bag flour to one cup baby oil. The flour should still run through your fingers and feel like flour but when you pack it it should mold and hold it's shape.

 

To make just the dough costs around 3 or 4 dollars, but I also got a plastic tub with a lid to make and store it in  (3.50) and some cheap kitchen utensils to play with for him (4.00) all from the dollar store, so I spent about $10 for this project. I would also suggest a vinyl-flannel backed table cloth to play on. If yours is anything like mine, part of the fun is dumping it out and throwing it in the air and the vinyl will help with clean up. I got mine at goodwill for a 1.99 still in the package, but if your not so lucky as to find one at the thrift store K-Mart has them for around $5, which is still a steal compared to the fancy-shmancy mess mats they sell at the baby store. And it will be bigger! 

this stuff really is fun to play with so wear something you don't mind getting messy in. 

 

 he's hard at work cook'n up something good just like daddy!

 

 His tongue sticks out when he concentrates. His daddy does the same thing, and it makes my heart giggle every time I see it.

 Eventually, we decided it was better to take the pants and socks off , at lest for him, momma kept her clothes on the whole time. Well, I did end up taking off my socks.

i would make "cloud dumplings" and bear would take them for his recipes.

this was a pretty darn fun activity and it kept him entertained for almost two hours! which is unheard of for my busy 22month old. but all good things come to and end and then it was into a bath to wash off the extra flour.

When he was done, I just packed all our "gear" into the tub with the dough, then used the drop cloth to gather and pour the rest of the dough back into the tub. Put the lid on and your ready for play some other day : )

Now,I know I haven't posted in awhile. Sorry. I had a lot going on, and it got farther and farther away from my last post and I wanted to do something really AWESOME  for my big return to blog land. Then I realized that was just stupid! While I hope you did think this post was great and I'm gonna do my best to post regularly, I'm still a work at home mom to a 2 year old and I can't do it all. So, you'll just have to forgive me when I have lulls in my posting, and I'll try to make up for it with semi-awesome posts upon my returns ; )